Go the distance.
Get equipped.
Baptist Bible Translators Institute’s AMT offers missionaries the tools they need to take the gospel to the uttermost.
What is AMT?
BBTI’s Advanced Missionary Training covers a wide variety of missions-related topics: field linguistics, cross-cultural anthropology, teaching literacy, and 3rd-world life skills, to name a few. Graduate missionaries leave with a veritable toolbox full of the tools they need to learn the languages, cultures and skills that will reach the
hearts of their people.
From Our Graduates:
BBTI is a huge game changer. I had studied languages and linguistics for 6 years before attending BBTI, including at university. I was blown away by the depth of the linguistic information they were able to communicate in only 9 months. I’m thrilled to now have a part in training missionaries here at BBTI!
– Libby, BBTI staff
There is hardly a week that goes by when we don’t talk about you and our lovely Texas memories! For the record: we would be missionary casualties without our BBTI training. So many warnings and teaching admonitions from our time in the classroom have come true!
–James
The training was excellent. I consider it time very well spent and the knowledge extremely valuable for the foreign field. I highly recommend BBTI to any missionary going to ANY foreign field, even English-speaking ones because of the culture training.
–Rick
Thanks for the training you gave us. It has kept us on the field on more than one occasion.
–John
We went through the training eighteen years ago and I still use what we learned there regularly. Not only did BBTI help me deal with learning Japanese, but I now use the linguistics training to teach Japanese people how to speak English. If you are planning to go to the mission field, pray about going to BBTI first. You won’t regret the nine months that you spend there.
–Duane
We are using what you taught us at BBTI every single day here.
–Joe
Knowing how much BBTI helped me, I would be a fool not to encourage other missionaries to go as well.
-Undisclosed
BBTI greatly helped us. We are encouraged that sounds we struggled with before are now a lot easier to recognize, record, reproduce, and recall. Learning to identify cultural aspects really does help lessen frustration.
–Sam
I used a translator the first time I preached
. . . two months after we arrived, and I despised it. We were also asked to teach a Sunday school class in English. After doing it a couple times I told the national pastor: this can’t be done. They need it in their language, or they will never grow. BBTI left a lasting impression on our methodology and missiology.
-Paul
I sit here all the time thinking about how impossible it would be to tackle these languages properly without having been taught how to do it. It’s daunting and sometimes discouraging as it is, and I still feel completely inadequate most of the time.
– Undisclosed
We are doing well with our language study. Runyankore is a complex Bantu dialect with phonemic lengthening (almost tonal), 3 past tenses, 2 future tenses, and multiple cases that change the prefixes on everything. It’s progressing, but slowly. There’s just no quick or easy way to reprogram your brain to speak another language. I’m very glad I went to BBTI to get the training in Phonetics and Linguistics. It has made the whole process a LOT easier. We know what to listen for when learning sounds, and how to replicate them very well, so we can speak the language without a foreign accent. Our goal in all this, of course, is effective communication of the Gospel without translators, and to help people become literate and experience the true priesthood of the believer by learning to read the Bible for themselves. Those nine months of hard work in rural Texas are continuing to pay eternal dividends. I honestly think the speed with which we have adapted here was largely facilitated by the cultural and language training we received at BBTI.
–James
I just thought I’d share a word of testimony on how helpful the linguistics courses have been since we have started working here . . . among the Tibetan peoples. We have been doing grammatical research in the Lowa Tibetan language. We have just made an interesting discovery on how 1st person plural works in Lowa and how different pronouns can adopt different quantifying suffixes. The neat thing is that there is no grammar [book] in the Lowa language so we are developing it. Without the linguistic studies we received at BBTI, we would really be in the dark about what is actually happening in this language.
-Undisclosed
I am told that I speak more clearly than other foreigners, even some that have been here as many as sixteen years. Speaking well and clearly gives me opportunities to communicate and thus build relationships that would not be possible otherwise. I am ever grateful for the privilege to study at BBTI and hope many others take advantage of the opportunity.
–Amy
I sure would like to know who the mission board director is who does not see the value of linguistics training! Every pastor (without exception) who has asked us about how we are going to accomplish our future ministry has expressed their 100% support and approval that we spent the time to get specific training. As a matter of fact, I believe that we have more meetings and probably more support today because these pastors feel more confident in supporting a missionary on a long-term basis knowing that we have made investments in long term training!
–Rodney, while on deputation
I definitely had my doubts before going to BBTI as to whether we would see much deputation progress while in school for nine months. We went to BBTI in August of 2008 at 62% of needed support. Now, one year after moving to BBTI, we are at 90% of needed support. Continue to tell missionaries on deputation that they can come to BBTI and continue deputation. Tell them how God so graciously blessed this missionary family who initially had doubts but is now amazed at what the Lord has done.
–Charlie
While serving in Europe and Asia and meeting many other missionaries, it has been my observation that the missionaries trained at BBTI were usually the first to learn the language which is indispensable in making spiritual inroads. In hindsight, training at BBTI would have been one of the best investments I could have ever made in my service overseas!
–Jerry
I finished the BBTI training four years ago. I will forever be grateful God directed me to attend the school. The lessons I learned there were invaluable to not only my language learning success . . . but also my connection with the people.
-Gloria
Osbert, my language teacher and culture instructor, paid me a very high compliment yesterday. He said I already speak his language better than any of the other missionaries. I know that this is solely due to the advanced training I received at BBTI. So, to all you missionaries out there on deputation, don’t you dare tell yourself that you can’t afford the school or cannot spare the time – YOU CANNOT AFFORD NOT TO!
–James
My wife and I were in the first BBTI class in 1973. The training was a great help to us in language learning, Bible teaching, and Bible translating during 23 years on the foreign field. Since 1999, we have helped prepare many missionaries, and we have seen the training affect their ministries as it affected ours.
—Rex, BBTI Staff and Former Director
From Our Graduates:
BBTI is a huge game changer. I had studied languages and linguistics for 6 years before attending BBTI, including at university. I was blown away by the depth of the linguistic information they were able to communicate in only 9 months. I’m thrilled to now have a part in training missionaries here at BBTI!
– Libby, BBTI staff
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Does Bible version really matter?
Using the NIV (not your memory), see how many of these questions you can answer correctly. You can download this quiz as a PDF here.
Conclusion: You've now seen 25 portions of God's word that are omitted from the NIV. So now what do you think of this “accurate, easy-to-understand, up-to-date Bible”? If these 25 questions haven’t served to show you that the NIV is a very inferior Bible, based on a very inferior Greek text, it is possible to write up another quiz with 25 more questions, or even 250, and you will still find that you can't find the passages in the NIV. If you recognized these verses and could fill in the blanks, you are likely using the Authorized (King James) Bible.